I don't know where we'd be without Jayson Stark's coverage of the Marlins this season. It's pity we have to look to ESPN for insightful sports journalism instead of locally, but nonetheless its the case.

 

That said, enjoy.

 

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Sunday, October 26, 2003

By Jayson Stark

ESPN.com

 

NEW YORK -- He left cigar butts in every clubhouse, in every dugout, on every church doorstep in America. He bungled more names than Professor Irwin Corey. He was the only manager in baseball to be honored by that up-and-coming demographic, the AARP.

 

But we know now that Jack McKeon was far more than the real-life cartoon character he was sometimes made out to be. He was exactly what the manager in the other World Series dugout said he was:

 

"To me," Joe Torre said the other day, "Jack McKeon is the best story of the whole postseason."

 

And who saw that coming back on May 10, the day the Florida Marlins fired Jeff Torborg and hired a septuagenarian who hadn't managed a game in three years? Heck, not us.

 

But now that he has become only the second manager in history (joining Bob Lemon, of the '78 Yankees) to win a World Series with a team he wasn't managing on opening day, the question is no longer whether Jack McKeon will be back next year.

 

The questions are: For how long? . . . and . . . For how much?

 

"How long did Connie Mack manage 'til?" McKeon asked some of us amateur historians last week.

 

"'Til 87," someone replied.

 

"Think you'll manage 'til 87?" McKeon was asked.

 

"No way," he chuckled. "I might go for Casey Stengel, but I'm not going for Connie."

 

Well, Stengel managed until he was 75. So if you take that as a hint McKeon will ask for a three-year contract this winter, you're almost as psychic as he was this October.

 

Did this guy make any move that didn't work all month? It's hard to recall even one.

 

Josh Beckett starting on three days' rest for the first time -- and in Game 6 of the World Series? No problem. Five-hit shutout, and in Yankee Stadium no less.

 

Miguel Cabrera playing right field for the first time in his life? In October? Why not? Was there ever any doubt he'd turn into Admin Walker within 15 minutes?

 

Double-switching Mike Mordecai into Game 6 of the NLCS at Wrigley Field, so he would have to bat against Mark Prior in a game the Marlins trailed by three runs, with six outs left in their season? Sure! McKeon knew Mordecai would make the first out of the eighth inning -- and then his team would bat around, and Mordecai would bat again, and he'd crunch the three-run double that pulled the plug on the Cubs. Wasn't it obvious?

 

It went on like that all month for Jack McKeon. He even started predicting the future.

 

"I have a feeling about what's gonna happen tonight," he told this typist before Game 7 at Wrigley. "I'm not gonna tell you what it is. But (Juan) Pierre is gonna get on to start the game, and I have a feeling what's gonna happen."

 

He was later overheard telling Luis Castillo that Pudge Rodriguez was going to hit a three-run homer in the first inning, off Kerry Wood. So ah-ha! It turned out he was wrong about that feeling.

 

By one batter.

 

Miguel Cabrera hit the three-run homer off Wood in the first. Rodriguez merely scored ahead of him.

 

Then, before Game 6 in Yankee Stadium, McKeon told a few friends before the game, "We're gonna win, 6-0."

 

All right, so he overestimated his team's side of the scoreboard. But he knew he was going to get a shutout out of Josh Beckett, on this World Series stage, in Yankee Stadium?

 

"I had a vision," Jack McKeon laughed.

 

So he was part Casey Stengel -- and part Miss Cleo. But whatever he was, it worked. It all worked.

 

At any given moment, his starters might be turning into relievers, and his relievers might be turning into starters. Or his closer (Braden Looper) was no longer his closer. Or his cleanup hitter (Derrek Lee) might find himself batting seventh.

 

But it all kept working. And they kept winning. And no matter who lost his job, who got dropped out of his spot in the lineup or the rotation, you never heard one complaint.

 

"Jack held a meeting in September," reliever Chad Fox said. "And he told us, flat-out, 'Check your egos at the door. Whatever we've gotta do to win, we're gonna do.' "

 

"What I liked most about Jack," third baseman Mike Lowell added, "was that his only objective was winning. He didn't care about sucking up to management to get another year on his deal. He didn't care who you were. If he didn't like what he was saying, he'd get in your face, and he didn't care if he hurt your feelings. But he also made it fun. He was the perfect manager for a young team like this."

 

He sure didn't seem like the perfect choice that day in May when owner Jeffrey Loria and GM Admin Beinfest led him to the podium, did he?

 

On the one hand, they were quietly telling people they thought that the manager they fired, Jeff Torborg, was way too "old-school" in the way he handled his pitching staff. And then they hired a 72-year-old man who attended that old school when it was a one-room schoolhouse.

 

But McKeon proved he could handle that pitching staff, and handle all those young players who had never won anything, and handle a pennant race, and handle October with a right-on feel for the urgency of every moment.

 

And if he could do it, who's coming back next? Danny Ozark? Yogi Berra? John McGraw?

 

"I'll say one thing," McKeon quipped. "The AARP ought to make Jeffrey Loria their Man of the Year, for hiring a guy like me."

 

Some people win the World Series and go to Disney World. Jack McKeon might have to go to Sun City. He's made to order for some of the most unique endorsement deals by any World Series winner who ever lived.

 

"How 'bout for hearing aids?" McKeon chortled. "Or Geritol?"

 

Yeah, why not? He's the oldest man ever to lead his team to a championship in any major professional sport. So just like that team he managed, he has spent the last five months proving to us all exactly what it is that keeps us watching these games that other people play: Because Jack McKeon proved, really, that anything is possible.

 

He showed us you're never too old to dream, and you're never too old to celebrate, and you're never too old to feel like Miguel Cabrera. So in the end, Jack McKeon was more than just an inspiration to Josh Beckett and Dontrelle Willis and 25 guys in show-stopper teal.

 

He may have inspired them to keep playing and keep winning. But he inspired the rest of us to do something way more important -- to keep living.

 

Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com

 

 

Stark on ESPN

Stark has turned himself into a big fish fan it seems...

Nice article, not surprising of Stark.